David Lidsky's Blog, page 4881

Rebranding Valentine's Day: Design Firm UnderConsideration's New Look of Love

Hopeless romantics, you have a new way to express yourself come Sunday. And for all of us who can't bear to face this most ooey-gooey of holidays, here's a more contemporary way to celebrate it. Studio 360's Redesign Valentine's Day Challenge, which I helped launch a few weeks ago, unleashed hundreds of both warm and not-so-fuzzy solutions, but the show also enlisted married graphic designers Armin Vit and Bryony Gomez-Palacio of Austin-based UnderConsideration to create an entire branding...

Sweet Jesus Crystal! A Japanese Design Master's Stunning "Rainbow Church"

An 80-foot tall window made of crystal prisms, which will bathe a room in rainbows.

Tokujin Yoshioka--one of the most influential Japanese designers alive--has unveiled a beautiful new project that'll be exhibited next May at MUSEUM. beyond museum, a exhibition in Seoul.

Called "Rainbow Church," the project gives Superman's Fortress of Solitude some stiff competition. It was inspired during a trip Yoshioka took over 20 years ago, to the Chapelle du Rosaire, which features stained glass...

Thunderous Boom in a Perfect Storm of iPad Apps

Here's one in the eye for iPad doubters: According to Flurry's analytical app-developer tracking skills, January saw the single biggest peak in developer activity ever registered in its system. It's the iPad.

Flurry's tracking code is embedded into iPhone apps by developers, so while it's not a completely fool-proof measure of how much developer excitement there is about a device, but it's a damn good indicator. Throughout the second half of 2009 the app development rate for the iPhone had...

How Feasible Is Large-Scale Urban Farming?

As city-dwellers around the world discover the importance of locally-grown food, visions of self-sustaining cities continue to grow. But how feasible is urban farming on a large scale? According to this video based on research from MVRDV, The Why Factory, and Stroom Den Haag, not very. In the end, the video concludes that "To strive for complete self-reliance with food in cities is currently not sensible", but still worth pursuing. Decide for yourself after watching the clip below.

[Via a

Fill 'er Up? What to Do with Chicago's Giant Hole

The Chicago Spire isn't going anywhere, so the Chicago Architecture Club asks, "What do we do instead?"

In keeping with the construction-site retro-fit trend (from New York to San Francisco) the Chicago Architecture Club just launched a contest for proposals to do something--anything!--with the stalled Chicago Spire's giant foundation site.

Calatrava's 2,000-foot-tall tower would be the country's tallest. Instead, it's a 76-feet-deep, 110-feet-wide hole on Lake Shore Drive. Construction was...

Futures Thinking: Mapping the Possibilities (Part 2)

Expected. Better. Worse. Weirder. What kind of world will we live in?

In Futures Thinking: The Basics, I offered up an overview of how to engage in a foresight exercise. In Futures Thinking: Asking the Question, I explored in more detail the process of setting up a futures exercise, and how to figure out what you're trying to figure out. In Futures Thinking: Scanning the World, I took a look at gathering useful data. In Futures Thinking: Mapping the Possibilities (Part 1), I gave a broad...

Green Kerala Express: A Game Show for the Sustainable Set

Have you always wanted to be on a TV game show but lack the encyclopedic knowledge of trivia to succeed? Green Kerala Express, a new game show on India's state-owned Doordarshan network, may be for you. The show, named after the coastal state of Kerala, is a hybrid reality/game show focused on rural sustainability efforts.

So far, the program, which is being billed as "India's first and biggest social reality game show," has received 250 entries from residents of Kerala. Among the most...

Foursquare Adds Another Big Partner: Conde Nast's Lucky Magazine

Foursquare's execs must've been executing a whirlwind tour of meeting rooms recently: In addition to Bravo, Zagat, and HBO, they've just signed up a special content deal with Conde Nast's Lucky magazine, in perfect time for New York fashion week.

The deal starts being specialized for Fashion Week itself, with Foursquare offering attendees tips on bars, coffee and other services near the show's venues and events, with the tips being selected by Lucky magazine's editors.

But just like the...

Bing Turbo-Charges Maps, Equips It With Flickr, Space Telescope to Challenge Google

Here's evidence that Microsoft isn't just up for challenging Google in the usual Web-search business, but in other Google areas too: Like Maps. Bing's just demonstrated some upcoming tweaks, and they'll make Google nervous.

Microsoft showed off its turbo-boosted Maps app at the TED conference, but as befits the intellectual theme of TED, it also posted a long and complex blog post about the matter. You can read it here, but it's absolutely gargantuan and delves into some of the...

Bing Turbo-Charges Maps, Equips it With Flickr, Space Telescope to Challenge Google

Here's evidence that Microsoft isn't just up for challenging Google in the usual web-search business, but in other Google areas too: Like Maps. Bing's just demonstrated some upcoming tweaks, and they'll make Google nervous. 

Microsoft showed off its turbo-boosted Maps app at the TED conference, but as befits the intellectual theme of TED, it also posted a long and complex blog post about the matter. You can read it here, but it's absolutely gargantuan and delves into some of the complexities...